Have they opened Pandora's box? Some Deerfield Beach city leaders
worry that's what they might've done by allowing marijuana
dispensaries in the city.

They're now trying to stop medical dispensaries from clustering
citywide by keeping them out of commercial areas that also have homes,
as well as setting rules to stop them from opening next to one another.

Mayor Bill Ganz said he doesn't want the city to become known as the
place to buy pot, even if it's just the medical kind that doesn't get
you high.

For centuries, people have used the kratom plant as a traditional
medicine for energy, alertness and pain relief.

It's typically either chewed or dried, ground and ingested in capsule,
smoked or served as tea.

The key psychoactive compounds that produce a "kratom high" are
mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine.

A low kratom dosage produces stimulant effects making people more
talkative, alert and energetic, according to a DEA fact sheet. At high
doses, kratom users can experience the drug's sedative effects, the
report shows.

People can buy kratom online and at head shops, vape shops and more
recently at kava bars that serve herbal drinks.

A DeLand police officer was fired, another suspended without pay and a
third reprimanded this month after they lost methamphetamine collected
as evidence at a home over the summer, Internal Affairs documents show.

Officers Michael Mirino, John Rutherford and Thomas Gillan responded
to a home on July 14 to stand by as members of Probation and Parole
searched the Lazy River Lane home of Cameron Rando, 19, who was on
probation for grand theft and burglary of an unoccupied dwelling
according to reports released this week.

Sarasota-based medical marijuana company AltMed Florida is poised to
begin growing its first crop of marijuana at a facility in Apollo Beach.

The Florida Department of Health authorized Plants of Ruskin -- the
nursery that is partnering with AltMed -- to begin operating the
cultivation facility.

"We have worked diligently to build what we believe will be the
most advanced indoor cultivation facility in Florida, and one of the
finest in the country," AltMed CEO John Tipton said in a press
release Monday.

Palm Beach County's first medical marijuana dispensary is now open for
business.

At noon Tuesday, Knox Medical opened the center at 1 South Dixie
Highway in Lake Worth, across the street from Lake Worth City Hall.

The dispensary occupies a former bank building in downtown Lake Worth,
and the interior resembles a dentist or doctor's office. Patients
check in at the foyer and then can proceed to a room with glass
display cases showcasing Knox Medical's products.

Knox Medical CEO Jose Javier Hidalgo said the new dispensary will
improve access to medical cannabis for everyone in South Florida.

TALLAHASSEE -- Seemingly learning from past mistakes, state health
officials have issued an emergency rule outlining the application
process for new medical-marijuana vendors seeking to receive licenses
in two weeks.

The new rule, published Wednesday and going into effect immediately,
outsources the evaluation of the applications to "subject
matter experts," requires "blind testing" of the
applications, and includes a detailed application form --- all
departures from the Department of Health's previous medical-marijuana
regulations that spawned a series of legal and administrative challenges.

Opening a medical marijuana dispensary in Florida naturally comes with
a lot of red tape.

Marijuana is still considered an illegal substance at the federal
level, despite the 29 states that have legalized it for recreational
or medicinal use in recent years. That makes it nearly impossible for
banks to fund marijuana distributing companies, which in turn makes it
hard for those companies to sign a lease for a store or warehouse or
even get insurance.

Statewide, 71 percent of Florida voters voted in favor of the medical
marijuana amendment last November. In Flagler County, the margin was
the same. In Volusia County, 73 percent voted to approve.

Overwhelming support. Particularly in a state like Florida which is
known sharp political divisions on most issues. Even so, the
Legislature was so reluctant to pass legislation putting the amendment
into effect that nothing was approved during the regular spring session.

The girls knew the rules, and especially the consequences. Their
father would never raise a hand to them, but he was an aficionado of
understated punishments.

Grab a pen and paper, he would tell his two daughters, and come sit at
the kitchen table. Write down what you did wrong, and how you plan on
correcting it. Sign it, date it and make sure you spelled everything
correctly.

Frank Vazquez fretted enough about Cylea and Leliana that he wouldn't
let them spend the night with friends because of all of the things
that might go on in other homes. And he was like a doorman at a fancy
high-rise when it came to who got past the threshold to visit his girls.

Authorities found an exhaustive list of weapons, drug paraphernalia
and Nazi propaganda when they raided a trailer Tuesday morning in a
rural pocket of west central Florida, according to the Pasco County
Sheriff's Office.

Five felons, two of whom authorities described as documented gang
members, were arrested after deputies and a SWAT team served a search
warrant on the suburban New Port Richey mobile home, WFLA-Channel 8
reported.

What's legal, what's not, and what we're waiting on in this time
between the passage of a state constitutional amendment legalizing
medical marijuana and a July deadline for the Department of Health to
institute rules and regulations.

What's legal, what's not, and what we're waiting on in this time
between the passage of a state constitutional amendment legalizing
medical marijuana and a July deadline for the Department of Health to
institute rules and regulations.

During the past six months, the number of doctors in Florida who can
recommend marijuana to patients has more than doubled from 374 to 819
as of June 2, according to state records. In Broward, Miami-Dade and
Palm Beach counties, the number also more than doubled from 130 to
303.

ORANGE PARK - Town Council soon will take up whether to lift Orange
Park's moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries, and if so, where
such establishments may open up shop within the town limits.

The Orange Park Planning and Zoning Board voting 3-1 with one member
absent July 13 recommended the council allow such dispensaries
provided they comply with certain conditions. The board's
recommendation is non-binding.

Under Florida law, medical marijuana dispensaries are treated as
pharmacies for zoning purposes. That means wherever a regular pharmacy
is allowed to operate, so is a medical marijuana dispensary.

Oviedo City Council members this week agreed to let the city's
moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries expire Aug. 5, making it
likely that Oviedo will become the first Seminole County municipality
to allow such businesses.

Council members also directed city staffers Monday to draft an
ordinance that will treat medical marijuana dispensaries under the
same zoning regulations as pharmacies.

Pharmacies in Oviedo are allowed to operate only in certain office and
commercial zoning districts, which are mostly located along major
thoroughfares. Council members are expected to vote on a new ordinance
in the coming weeks to allow pharmacies and medical marijuana
dispensaries to operate only in certain commercial zoning districts,
but not in zoning districts for offices.

The blond toddler pounced from the floor without warning and reached
for a toy deep within Savannah Woods' entertainment center.

She remained on the plush, beige carpet, her eyes following the
toddler through the room. In attempt to rein in the child's energy,
Woods called him back to her side and asked him to name a smiling
woman in the picture she held.

"Momma," the two-year-old said. The photograph captured Woods and her
wife, Carly.

Scientists, public health experts and volunteers working with them
have started to show up at music festivals, concerts, raves and other
public gatherings where illicit drugs are frequently used. Equipped
with special chemical testing kits, they help attendees test pills and
powder for purity in real time so people can make better informed
decisions about whether to take them.

The practice - more common in Europe than in the United States - is
controversial, and the debate has been similar to the early days of
needle-exchange programs in the 1980s. Proponents argue harm
reduction. They say people are more likely to reject taking drugs to
get high if the substances do not contain what they think they do,
which reduces the risk of overdose and other harmful effects. Critics
say such programs implicitly encourage the use of illegal drugs.

The medical marijuana industry officially has its guidelines with the
passage of a bill out of the Florida Legislature on the last day of a
three-day special session.

The votes were 29-6 in the Senate and 103-9 in the House. The few no
votes were mostly Democrats who wanted fewer restrictions in the bill,
but also a few Republicans who remain against the idea of medical
marijuana on principle.

Gov. Rick Scott said he "absolutely" will sign the bill. That means
big changes for patients, caregivers, doctors and growers, compared
with the far more limited medical marijuana law passed by the
Legislature in 2014, which resulted in seven grower/dispensers in the
state.

TALLAHASSEE -- Arguing that Florida legislators violated voters'
intent when they prohibited smoking for the medical use of marijuana,
the author of the state's medical marijuana amendment sued the state
on Thursday to throw out the implementing law.

John Morgan, the Orlando trial lawyer who spearheaded and financed the
successful campaign to make medical access to cannabis a
constitutional right, filed the lawsuit in Leon County Circuit Court
Thursday morning, asking the court to declare the law implementing the
2016 constitutional amendment unenforceable.

TEMPLE TERRACE -- Dropping a giant joint in favor of the "USS
Maryjane" seemed to smooth the waters for a pro-marijuana entry in
this year's Temple Terrace Fourth of July Parade.

The new float designed by the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws featured the flag-festooned ship crewed by some
military veterans and painted with the slogan, "Hemp for Victory."

The theme plays off a World War II film from the Department of
Agriculture that praised the nation's hemp farmers for their work in
creating strong ropes from the stalks of marijuana plants for the
armed forces.

Alfred LubranoWest Chester addiction psychologist Drew Alikakos dials
a number for a local addiction treatment center that he suspects has
been illicitly re-routed to a Florida facility. His own phone number
was "hijacked" in such a manner.

Alfred Lubrano works for the enterprise team. Previously, he wrote
about poverty, and before that, he was a feature writer and columnist.

Last September, West Chester addiction psychologist Drew Alikakos made
a jarring discovery: His patients were disappearing.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A Florida teacher tipped off drug dealers that
her detective husband was investigating them in order to get revenge
for his alleged infidelity.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported Wednesday that federal
prosecutors want an eight-year sentence for 31-year-old Porsha
Session, who pleaded guilty earlier this year to obstruction.

In 2013, Session searched her then-husband's work email and found
information about a drug investigation. She says he was cheating on
her, and that to get back at him, she used a co-worker's phone at the
elementary school where she worked to call one of the dealers and
alert him that an informant had infiltrated his group. The informant
later killed himself.

Her attorneys are asking that she be sentenced to house arrest at her
June 28 hearing.

Or it could have been the steely look in the eyes of Lake County,
Fla., Sheriff Peyton Grinnell as he deadpanned: "We are coming for
you. Run."

Perhaps it was the muted background music: an eerie melody that
wouldn't have been out of place in a Batman movie.

In the end, what could have been an unremarkable public service
announcement about opioid abuse in Lake County spread widely on the
internet, garnering about a million views on the Facebook page of the
sheriff's office, where it was first posted Friday. It sparked
concerns about police militarization and drew more than a few
comparisons to Islamic State recruitment videos.

TAMPA -- Four years ago, Bree Morris faced a choice between pain relief
and being close to family.

Permanently disabled from a car crash that injured her back, Morris, 53,
moved from Florida to Colorado after voters here rejected a medical
marijuana referendum in 2012. She left her children and grandchildren with
a hunch that access to medical cannabis in Colorado would work better than
the opiates that had turned her into a "zombie."

"From that day on, my quality of life changed," she said. "I started doing
walks around the park. I started feeling better about life. I'm able to
talk and be alert and do things and even go back to school to earn my
bachelor's."

Florida health officials have started the rules-making process that will
expand those eligible to receive medical marijuana.

The Department of Health on Tuesday published the proposed rules and
announced that public hearings will be held in five cities Feb. 6-9.

Patients with one of 10 medical conditions will be able to receive medical
marijuana but it does not allow for more distributing organizations. There
are currently seven licensed, with one more case under an administrative
challenge.

A Broward doctor and his medical assistant were arrested on prescription
drug charges Wednesday, according to the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration.

Dr. [name redacted], 50, of Parkland, was arrested after a six-month
investigation that showed he illegally supplied methamphetamine to some of
his patients at his Wilton Manors practice, authorities said. He is also
accused of dispensing medically unnecessary prescriptions to use with the
methamphetamine "to further enhance the patient's altered state of mind,"
agents wrote.

TALLAHASSEE -- Even as the state prepares to carry out a constitutional
amendment authorizing medical marijuana, a lack of guidance from health
officials could create a "very murky and dangerous legal area" for
patients and doctors.

Authors of the amendment, industry insiders and legislative leaders have
called on the Department of Health to clarify what doctors and dispensing
organizations can legally do under existing state laws and the
voter-approved amendment that went into effect Tuesday.

To date, the health agency has remained mum, referring only to the
language of the constitutional amendment overwhelmingly approved by voters
in November and to state laws approved in 2014 and 2016.

Officials were expecting the measure to go before the County Commission in
February or March. But several things have changed since the county's
Public Safety Coordinating Council passed a version of the bill in August,
and officials from at least two of the county's cities are opposed to
opting in should the county pass an ordinance. Matt Bruce @Matt_BruceDBNJ

It's been about five months since Flagler County leaders last discussed
the prospect of a proposed countywide adult civil citation ordinance that
could give law enforcement the discretion to cite rather than arrest
people caught with small amounts of marijuana.

It took a lot of convincing for John Evard to go to rehab. Seven days into
his stay at the Las Vegas Recovery Center, the nausea and aching muscles
of opioid withdrawal were finally beginning to fade.

"Any sweats?" a nurse asked him as she adjusted his blood pressure cuff.
"Last night it was really bad, but not since I got up," replied Evard, 70,
explaining that he'd awakened several times with his sheets drenched.

Even for him, it was hard to understand how he ended up 300 miles away
from his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., at this bucolic facility in the
suburbs of Vegas. "This is the absolute first time I ever had anything
close to addiction," he said. He prefers to use the term "complex
dependence" to describe his situation: "It was, shall we say, a big
surprise when it happened to me."

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Dr. Joseph Dorn has had a unique vantage
point when it comes to the burgeoning medical marijuana industry in
Florida.

Dorn was the medical director of Surterra Therapeutics, which is one
of the six dispensing organizations licensed to grow and distribute
medical cannabis in the state. He resigned from that position two
months ago and has opened a medical marijuana treatment center as
Amendment 2 takes effect on Tuesday.

The constitutional amendment, which was approved by 71 percent of
Florida voters, allows higher-strength marijuana to be used for a
wider list of medical ailments. However, the true measure of what the
amendment means won't be immediately seen until a new set of rules are
adopted and implemented by the Florida Legislature and the Department
of Health.

Mayor Buddy Dyer and the city of Orlando recently passed, 4-3, the initial
vote to deprioritize arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana.
I'm thankful for Dyer and Commissioners Regina Hill, Patty Sheehan and
Robert Stuart for their support of the ordinance. I, unfortunately, left
the City Council meeting feeling disappointed in Commissioner Samuel Ings
for voting against it.

We live in a society where young black men and boys have been a target of
the war on drugs. Ings argues that this policy would tarnish the image of
Orlando as a family vacation destination.

Would-be medical marijuana entrepreneurs face months of waiting and an
unknown number of rules and regulations

With the passage of the medical marijuana amendment, would-be pot-shop
proprietors looking to get in on the ground floor of Florida's Green Rush
are in for months of waiting and an uncertain regulatory future.

Amendment 2, passed with 71 percent of the vote, will broaden the number
of patients who qualify for full-strength medical marijuana to include
sufferers of HIV/AIDS, cancer, PTSD, ALS and a number of other ailments.

It can be bought online and shipped to your doorstep, like shoes from
Zappos or a mystery novel from Amazon. It's cheap, just $40 for a gram.
Nicknames: pink, U4. Potency: eight times more powerful than morphine.
Death toll: at least 50 and counting.

Two recent casualties should be incentive enough to clamp down on the
drug's availability and the people who profit from it. Best friends
Grant Seaver and Ryan Ainsworth from Park City, Utah, got their hands
on the drug, formally named U-47700, through a teenage friend who
bought it online from a company in Shanghai. Both Seaver and Ainsworth
were 13. Grant's parents found him dead from an overdose of pink Sept.
11. Two days later, Ryan's father found his son dead on the couch.

The last time Floridians faced the subject of medical marijuana on the
ballot, the measure just barely failed to garner enough support needed
to become law.

This time appears to be different. There's still resistance, but the
large wave of criticism from various groups like the Florida Sheriff's
Association is gone. Polls indicate the ballot measure again named
Amendment 2 appears to be coasting toward passage.

The most recent survey released by the University of North Florida
indicates 73 percent of voters approve of the amendment, significantly
more than the 60 percent needed for it to become law. Backers of the
Amendment say stripping away the so-called loopholes and timing is
key.

The only sure way to know if the dire warnings against Amendment 2
(medical marijuana) will happen is to vote it in and find out.

Fortunately for Florida, other states have already done that. The four
states where marijuana is fully legal began with medical marijuana
about 15 years before. Those years of experience told voters that the
dire predictions were wrong.

Amendment 2 is tightly written, with many safeguards, including room for
the Legislature to act. Floridians are beneficiaries of the 'laboratory
of the states.' If Amendment 2 passes and does not live up to its
hoped-for benefits, Floridians will surely reject full legalization.

Brightly lit and bustling, Harborside Health Center serves as
something of a model for the medical marijuana industry - even as
California's freewheeling approach to cannabis is seen as an example
of how not to do things.

As dozens of customers at Harborside pick their products, chatty
budtenders talk knowledgeably about the selection, which includes
cannabis for smoking, eating and vaporizing.

Business is booming: Between this store in Oakland and another
location in San Jose, Harborside's sales total $35 million a year.
Sales are so strong that Harborside offers free yoga, tai chi and
acupuncture to its customers, who must have a doctor's permission to
enter the store.

A Mother Risks Prison and Splits Up Her Family in a Desperate Attempt
to Rid Her Son of Cancer.

The Rockies unfurled outside Kristen Yeckley's passenger window, but
she kept her eyes on the speedometer. No more than 5 mph over the
limit, she urged her mother. Hands at 10 and 2. She had stayed up
past 3 a.m., sobbing, praying, plotting the route back to Pinellas
Park. The drive meant committing a federal crime with her 5-year-old
son in the backseat. Kristen kept imagining handcuffs, the fear on
Tyler's trusting face. If they were pulled over, she would use his
medical records to plead for sympathy. She and her husband, Joe, had
saved up for their dream home with a backyard pool. They had
comfortable jobs, poker nights, a college fund in their son's
name. Then came Tyler's diagnosis. When doctors said he was out of
options, Kristen and Joe vowed to do anything, even split up their
family, to give Tyler a chance with a treatment Florida doesn't
allow. That brought Kristen to the sloping road out of Colorado last
summer, 2,000 miles from home - with vials of liquid medical
marijuana buried in her mother's suitcase. Worry first tugged at
Kristen in the line to see Santa Claus.

In 2009, when Ricky Williams studied as a masseuse and gaveme a
Japanese shiatsu massage, the subject of marijuana came up-this is
where conversations could go during deep-tissue revitalization with
Ricky- and he said something ahead of its time. "Why does the NFL
even care about catching players smoking pot?" he said. "How does
that benefit anyone?"

Have we advanced enough to ask this in 2016?

Ricky's affinity for the herb led to suspensions, contributed to
failed Dolphins seasons and has moved him to being a
life-after-football spokesman for pot's benefits.

Re Mark Wilson's July 28 letter, "Florida does not need 2,000 'pot
shops' ": It seems that the only devastating effects should Amendment
2, legalizing medical marijuana, will be that hundreds of thousands
of suffering Floridians will get relief from cheap natural plants
that won't cost $50 a pill and come with a list of hazardous side
effects a mile long.

I'm sure the Florida Chamber of Commerce's mission of promoting good
private-sector jobs supports the sale of tobacco, which kills half a
million Americans annually just as sure as the sun rises and sets.
How's that for devastating?

And I'm guessing the chamber's position is with the frackers in
adding more carcinogens to our drinking water because it creates
jobs. Forget people's health and safety. Millions will suffer
illness, and many will get cancer.

As pot shops start to sprout in Florida, cities are struggling with
how - or whether - to regulate the state's new marijuana industry.

This week, the state's first medical-marijuana dispensary, operated
by Trulieve, opened its doors to customers in Tallahassee. Health
officials Wednesday gave the go-ahead to a second group, Surterra, to
start distributing its cannabis products. Both marijuana operators
have permission to deliver products statewide, and Surterra plans to
open a dispensary next month in Tampa.

Far be it for me to disagree with the Capital Curmudgeon, but I must
take issue that Florida will not be California when it comes to
medical marijuana. Of course not - Florida was merely the pill mill
capital of the nation with criminal medical professionals complicit
in the schemes.

With medical marijuana, Florida will be much worse! I foresee many
more than the 2,000 pot shops predicted by the Florida Department of
Health should this amendment pass.

Even if Florida only becomes like Colorado (that has seen youth use
of pot skyrocket since their laws passed), our youth gain tremendous
access to potent cannabis - not that weak version from the '60s.

TALLAHASSEE - Marijuana was sold legally in Florida for the first
time this week since it was outlawed by the federal government in 1937.

In a staid Tallahassee storefront more akin to a doctor's office than
a head shop, Dallas Nagy, a Tampa-area native with chronic seizures
and muscle spasms, plunked down $60 for a non-euphoric strain of
marijuana Tuesday.

"I thank you for the hope of getting better," Nagy said at the
opening of Trulieve, the first medical marijuana dispensary in the state.

The answer to sustaining Social Security and possibly paying down the
national debt is very simple. Legalize marijuana and don't tax it but
let the government produce and sell it as a government-run business.

It's going to be legalized in all the states eventually anyway, so
why not use it for some good. Farmland now sitting idle could be put
to use. Thousands of jobs would be created, and profits could be used
to help feed the hungry in our country and save Social Social Security.

TALLAHASSEE- The first medical marijuana will be available in Florida
next week.

Trulieve, a grower and dispensary based in Tallahassee, said
Wednesday that it has received permission from the Department of
Health to start selling a strain of the drug low in THC, the chemical
that causes a euphoric high. The Florida Legislature in 2014
legalized that variety of cannabis as a medical option for children
with severe epilepsy and cancer. This is the first dispensing license
fromthe state health department, Trulieve says. "We are happy to
announce that we have passed all inspections-from growing and
processing to dispensing- and are the very first medical cannabis
provider in the state to receive these formal authorizations,"
Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers said in a statement.

The whole escalation of violence - cop on citizen and citizen on cop-
has been escalated by the so-called"war on drugs." Back in the day,
police were instructed to aggressively pursue drug "crimes."

Authorities profited from this strategy, politically and economically
(seizure law). This tough love approach has not worked for 60 years,
maybe more. You can't help someone who doesn't want help (drug users
and abusers).

Consequently, whenever a cop draws a gun on a person holding a couple
of grams of some outlawed substance, violence is possible.

Stop this insanity. Take the money and flesh wasted on this useless
"war" and put it into social help and education. We'll all be better
off for it-especially the police.

Orlando commissioners voted to approve a temporary moratorium on
marijuana dispensaries in the city Monday, months before Florida
voters will again weigh in on medical uses for the drug.

The City Council vote comes after three would-be sellers of either
medicinal marijuana or the low-THC oil known as Charlotte's Web have
recently expressed interest in Orlando storefronts where current
zoning would allow them.

"We're not trying to keep them from doing business in the city,"
District 3 City Commissioner Robert Stuart said Monday. "We're
looking at: What are the boundaries in which they would do that?"

The 1936 film "Reefer Madness" wound up becoming a campy cult classic
because the movie, originally designed as a warning about the dangers
of marijuana use, so overdramatized the issue that it's message
simply couldn't be taken seriously.

Now, with a slew of new polls showing Floridians overwhelmingly
support the legalization of medical marijuana, opponents of Amendment
2 - the proposed constitutional amendment to legalize medical pot -
are themselves edging closer to unintentional satire.

The "Vote No on 2" campaign has launched a series of broadsides,
including a recent video warning darkly that if the measure passes,
up to 5,000 marijuana dispensaries could open across Florida, more
pot shops than McDonald's, 7-Eleven and Starbucks combined.

Opioid Deaths in the US Have Multiplied in Recent Years. Chris
Mcgreal Visits Fort Lauderdale to Explore the Origins of the Epidemic

For James Fata, the transition from prescription painkillers to
heroin was seamless. The 24-year-old came to Florida to shake an
addiction to opioid pills, but trying to go through rehab in a region
known as the prescription capital of the US proved too much. When a
government crackdown curtailed his supply of pills, Fata turned to
readily available heroin to fill the void.

A 29-Year-Old Man Was Killed In A Raid That Was Later Deemed
Justified. Police Found $2 Worth of pot.

TAMPA - The mother of a man who was shot and killed by Tampa police
officers during a raid on his home in 2014 has sued the city, its
former police chief and the officers involved over her son's death.

The lawsuit, filed late last week in Hillsborough County Circuit
Court, accuses the police of negligence for acting on the word of an
informer with a history of heavy drug use and criminal activity. It
also says that officers used excessive force against 29-year-old Jason
Westcott, who was killed, and his boyfriend Israel 'Izzy' Reyes, who
was 22 and is a plaintiff in the lawsuit.